Free Surrender

Do you ever wish you could raise the white flag before your first cup of coffee? Wish you could give up before the toast burns black as charcoal in the finicky toaster that should really be replaced.

On those days when the dog has decided that what’s in the kitchen garbage pail is really more delicious than what’s in his bowl and you’re sweeping coffee grounds from the living room floor, don’t you wish you could just admit defeat?

And, we don’t. We hold on tight to our last thread of sanity, thinking that its fragile filament will hold us forever suspended over the pit of failure. With raised fists and throats hoarse from angry shouts we dare not capitulate. Because surrender is certain defeat, right?

I’m trying to remember when I equated a laying down of arms with failure. Trying to recall the memory that made me think, that trained my mind to know, that defeat and surrender made me less than who I was, who I am in Christ.

I cannot pin point the moment but I do know that for as long as I can remember my stubborn streak has left a deep and grooved path behind me. Admitting that I can’t is tantamount to shame and there is part of me that cringes when I give up – the part of me that links my identity with the pride of a job well done. A day without screaming. A dinner without an argument. A perfect week of Hello Mornings. All of it, wrapped up with pretty paper and the bright bow of perfection.

But what of those days when you can’t seem to find your way to the drawer that holds your toothbrush and the thought of taking a shower requires more energy than you can muster?

Is there anything left on those days, other than surrender?

Surrender – n. An act of surrendering, submission into the possession of another; abandonment, resignation.

I am learning, slowly, that there is freedom in surrender. That resigning myself to my less than perfect days are really a form of opening myself to God and all He has planned and trusting that His plan for me is perfect.

Surrender does not imply failure. It implies submission. I love the second part of the definition above- submission into the possession of another. Laying down the mess of your day before the only One who can make beautiful from the mire.

Surrender is about knowing that you don’t have to go at it alone. That your days are about finding Him, in the dishes that threaten to overflow, the heaps of dirty clothes and the dust bunnies under your sofa. It’s about your knees hitting the floor when you can’t stand any longer and knowing that God will meet you there.

It’s about worshiping with abandon, while basking in the crazy grace of a Saviour – because He surrendered first.